History of Middlesex county, Connecticut, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Part 4

Author: Whittemore, Henry, b. 1833; Beers, J.B. & Company, publishers
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : J. B. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 818

USA > Connecticut > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex county, Connecticut, with biographical sketches of its prominent men > Part 4

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Middlesex county was, when first settled, covered with a heavy growth of timber. The principal varieties were oak, walnut, and chestnut on the highi grounds, and ma- ple, birch, beech, elm, ash, and hemlock on the decliv- ities of the hills and in the valleys. Interspersed among these were other varieties, and, in some portions of the county, pitch pine, as well as white pine and cedar, were found. The grand old trees of the primitive forests have long since fallen " beneath the woodman's sturdy strokes," and a later growth is permitted to flourish only on lands least valuable for other purposes. At first much of this timber had so little value, that it was often burned to make way for the plough. The more valuable varieties were converted into lumber for building houses or ships, and, as the demand for fuel in neighboring cities and towns increased, greater economy was exercised with the less valuable varieties. But for the substitution of min- eral coal for the fuel which the timber growth formerly supplied, the entire surface would long since have been denuded of even the meagre growth which remains.

The wild animals that traversed the forests on the hills and in the valleys of this region have long since disap- peared. The bear was destroyed, because of his depre- dations on the pig-styes and corn-fields of the early in- habitants; the wolf, that once made night hideous with his howls, that ravaged the sheep-folds of the settlers, and was at times the terror of the belated traveler, has been exterminated or driven to northern forests; the stealthy panther and lynx have fled before the advance of civilization; and the harmless and timid deer, that cropped the herbage on the hillsides, has been hunted

for his palatable flesh and useful skin till the last of his kind long since ceased to exist here. Other animals dis- appeared as their changing environments became unfavor- able to their continuance, and many years have elapsed since any of the original denizens of the forests here have been seen.

CHAPTER II.

THE GEOLOGY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY. By WILLIAM NORTH RICE, PH. D., Professor of Geology in Wesleyan University.

1 .- The Metamorphic Rocks.

T HE AREA of Middlesex county may be divided geologically into two very well marked portions, which require separate description. The boundary be- tween the two extends from a point in the north line of Portland, about a mile east of the Connecticut River, in a direction approximately south-southwest, to a point not far from the middle of the south line of Durham. The boundary crosses the river a short distance west of the range of hills called the White Rocks in Middletown.

The district east of this boundary consists entirely of highly crystalline rocks. The predominant rock is a micaceous rock, varying from a gneiss to a mica schist, according to the proportion of the mica to the quartz and feldspar, and the consequently varying degree of development of the schistose structure. Sometimes the gneiss becomes granitoid, almost losing its stratification. Sometimes the mica and feldspar disappear, so that the rock becomes a quartz-rock. A stratum of this quartz- rock forms the summit of the ridge called Great Hill, or Cobalt Mountain, on the boundary between Portland and . Chatham. The extreme hardness of this rock, enabling it so effectively to resist the erosive action of water and ice, is doubtless the reason for the existence of the ridge, the softer rocks around it having been worn away. In other localities the mica gives place to hornblende, so that the rock becomes a hornblende schist. Such a hornblende schist is the rock in which the ores of cobalt and nickel are contained, which were formerly worked at Chatham. The granitoid gneisses of this formation afford good building stones, and have been quarried in various places for this purpose. The piers of the bridge over the Connecticut at Middletown are built of gneiss from Collins Hill, in Portland. A gneiss from Haddam Neck has been used in the building of some of the forti- fications in New York Harbor. The more schistose strata afford an excellent material for curb-stones, and have been quarried for this purpose at various localities in Haddam and elsewhere. These schists have been used to some extent for flag-stones, but the surfaces of the layers are not usually smooth enough to adapt them well for that purpose.

The rocks above described have been entitled meta- morphic rocks, and there can be no reasonable doubt that that name expresses truly their nature and history.

GENRAL HISTORY.

They were originally deposited as sedimentary rocks, de- rived from the disintegration of older rocks. Subse- quently, by the joint action of heat and moisture, they suffered a molecular re-arrangement by which they as- sumed their present crystalline texture. They may once have been fossiliferous; but whatever fossils they may formerly have contained, have been entirely obliterated by the process of metamorphism. At the time of their metamorphism the strata were subjected to extreme dis- location, being folded and broken in the most compli- cated ways. The evidence of these disturbances is seen in the extremely varying dips throughout the region. In some places, as at Arnold's curb-stone quarry at Had- dam, the strata are nearly vertical.

The region of metamorphic rocks in which the larger part of Middlesex county is included, occupies the greater part of New England, and extends southwestward, along the course of the Appalachian system of mountains, nearly the whole length of the eastern border of the United States. In New England this belt of metamor- phic rocks lies immediately upon the coast, but south- wardly it is separated from the sea by a strip of Tertiary and Quaternary deposits.

It was formerly the belief of geologists that all highly crystalline rocks must be of the greatest antiquity, and such rocks were formerly called primitive, or primary, with reference to that belief. It is, however, now well established, that rocks of the most highly crystalline character have been produced at various periods, so that the crystalline character of the rocks of the Appalachian region is in itself no proof of their great antiquity. All that is certainly known of the age of a large part of this belt of metamorphic rock, is that it is not later than the Carboniferous Period ; the last great epoch of disloca- tion, with its usual accompaniment of metamorphism, in the Appalachian region, having been at the close of the Carboniferous. The opinion held by some geologists, that all these crystalline rocks of the Ap- palachian region are of Archæan age, is certainly not proved, and is probably not true. The lithological character of strata is of very little value as evidence of age. Fossils afford the only reliable criterion of age, and the age of a non-fossiliferous stratum can be determined only by reference to fossiliferous strata which it overlies or underlies. It is not at all unlikely that rocks of various ages, Archæan and Paleozoic, may be included in this region of metamorphic rock. The only way by which the problem of the age of these rocks can be solved, is by searching for the patches of rock, here and there, in which the metamorphism has been less com- plete than usual, and in which, therefore, traces of fos- sils have been preserved (as at Bernardston, Massachu- setts, where Upper Silurian or Devonian fossils have been discovered), and then carefully tracing the relations of these patches of fossiliferous rock to the underlying and overlying masses of rock in which the fossils have been completely obliterated. The patches of fossiliferous rock appear to be so few and small, and the dislocations of the strata have been so complex, that it is doubtful

whether it will ever be practicable to solve the problem completely ; but confessed ignorance is better than im- aginary knowledge.

Associated with these metamorphic rocks are numer- ous veins. Probably at the time of the dislocation and metamorphism of the strata numerous fissures were made, which were filled with crystalline material deposited from the hot waters which had held it in solution. These veins are sometimes very irregular, and cut across the strata in every direction ; but often they coincide closely for considerable distances in dip and strike with the strata themselves. Some of the veins are very thin, re- sulting from the filling of mere cracks. Others are many yards in perpendicular thickness. Most of the larger veins are of a coarse granite. This granite has been quarried at numerous localities in Middletown, Portland, and Chatham, for the sake of the feldspar, which is used in the manufacture of porcelain. The mica in these granites occurs often in large sheets, but they are too ir- regular to have any commercial value. These granite veins are the chief repository of the minerals which have rendered the towns of Middletown, Haddam, Portland, and Chatham famous among mineralogists. The feld- spar (chiefly orthoclase, but in part albite) often occurs crystallized; and the crystals are sometimes of very large size, occasionally two feet or more in dimensions. The mica (muscovite) is often in beautiful crystals. The quartz, though generally of a smoky gray, is sometimes of a fine rose color. The accessory minerals, occurring more or less abundantly in these granites, are very nu . merous. The following is probably not a complete list of the minerals which have been recognized in these granite veins: sphalerite, chrysoberyl, rhodonite, beryl, garnet, epidote, iolite (usually altered to fahlunite), le- pidolite, oligoclase, tourmaline (black, green, and red), columbite, samarskite, apatite, monazite, torbernite, au- tunite. Besides these granite veins, there are numerous quartz veins, though the latter are generally of small size. In the southeastern part of Middletown is a large vein containing argentiferous galenite, associated with pyrite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite, in a gangue consist- ing chiefly of quartz, with some calcite and fluorite. This vein was extensively worked for lead in colonial and Revolutionary times, and has been worked more re- cently for silver : but the workings have been aban- doned.

II. The Connecticut Valley Sandstone.

The northwestern portion of the county, including the towns of Cromwell and Middlefield, the larger part of Middletown and Durham, and a small part of Portland, is occupied by a group of rocks very different from the pre- ceding. In the district now under consideration the pre- dominant rock is a red sandstone. The rock varies much in texture, sometimes becoming coarser and passing into a conglomerate, sometimes becoming finer and passing into a shale. The color is usually a decidedly reddish brown, owing to the presence of ferric oxide, but some of the layers are gray rather than red. Here and there the

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.

percolation of waters charged with decomposing organic matter has effected a local deoxydation of the iron, and has thus produced spots and streaks of a greenish color. The sandstone proper (in distinction from the more shaly strata) is thick-bedded and massive, and can be quarried in large blocks of very uniform texture. It makes an ex- cellent building stone, and has been quarried at various localities in the Connecticut Valley and elsewhere. Espe- cially famous are the quarries at Portland, which have been worked for many years, and are still being worked on a most extensive scale. Great quantities of the stone are sent every year to New York and other cities, besides what is used in the immediate vicinity. Besides the red sandstone (including the red shale and conglomerate), two other rocks occur in small quantity in this forma- tion. At several localities in Middletown, Middlefield, and Durham (the localities all lying nearly in one north and south line), may be observed onterops of a black, highly carbonaceous shale, containing thin seams and small nodules of bituminous coal. Associated closely with the black shale is a stratum of dark gray impure limestone. A characteristic locality for these rocks is the little gorge of Laurel Brook, near the Middletown reser- voir, in Middlefield. This black shale has unhappily proved a delusion and a snare to some of the farmers in the vicinity, who have expended considerable money in boring in search of coal. It is perfectly safe to say that no coal in workable quantities is to be found. A boring prosecuted with sufficient persistence will pass through va- rious alternations of sandstone, conglomerate, and shale, with perhaps an occasional sheet of trap, and will event- ually reach metamorphic rocks like those which have been already described. A very simple consideration will make this evident even to the non-geological reader. The strata of the sandstone formation, in most parts of the Connecticut Valley, dip pretty uniformly to the east, the average inclination being not far from twenty de- grees. It is therefore evident that a stratum which is underground at any particular locality is likely to come to the surface further west. If a Durham farmer wishes to know what rocks underlie his farm, it will be much cheaper for him to take a walk through Wallingford and Cheshire, and examine the surface rocks, than to employ an adventurer with a diamond drill.

The formation now under consideration occupies a strip of territory extending from New Haven nearly to the northern boundary of Massachusetts, and varying from four miles to somewhat more than twenty miles in width. From the northern boundary of Massachusetts as far down as Middletown the course of the Connecticut River lies in this formation, but below Middletown the river has carved a channel for itself through the meta- morphic rocks. There are several other basins at inter- vals along the Atlantic coast occupied by formations similar to that of the Connecticut Valley. One is in Nova Scotia; another, the most extensive, extends from the Palisades on the Hudson southwestward across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Other basins occur in Virginia and North Carolina. All these localities present about

the same variety of rocks. The rocks (with the excep- tion of the limestone and coal) have evidently been de- rived from the disintegration of the older rocks outside of the basin, the strata of conglomerate often containing pebbles whose source can be recognized with some de- gree of definiteness. The beds appear to have been de- posited in the brackish waters of shallow estuaries. The troughs in which these estuaries lay were probably formed at the time of the folding and dislocation of the older metamorphic rocks. The question is often asked whether the Connecticut River ever emptied into the Sound at New Haven. The old Connecticut estuary (as we have seen) communicated with the Sound at New Haven. But it is probable that, at the close of the period of the depo- sition of the sandstone and associated rocks, the region southwest of Middletown was so much elevated, that the waters of the upper part of the valley found a lower path to the eastward, and accordingly commenced cutting the valley in which they now flow through the metamorphic rocks. It is probable, therefore, that the Connecticut River, ever since it became a true river, has occupied substantially its present valley.

The rocks of the formation under consideration con- tain a variety of fossils, which serve as memorials of the life of the period in which the rocks were deposited. The black shales contain impressions of cycads and ferns, and more abundant remains of ganoid fishes. The cy- cads are a group of plants exceedingly abundant in the earlier part of the Mesozoic age, but at present very scantily represented. A familiar example is the beautiful plant commonly (though incorrectly) called the sago- palm, which is not infrequently seen in conservatories. The cycads superficially resemble palms and tree-ferns, but they are really much more closely related to the pines and other coniferous trees. The ganoid fishes are also a group now nearly extinct, though very abundant throughout the latter part of Paleozoic and the earlier part of Mesozoic times. One of the few modern ex- amples of ganoid fishes is seen in the bony pike, or gar- fish, of the rivers of the Mississippi valley. The ganoids are generally, though not always, covered with an armor of bony 'scales or scutes; and the internal skeleton is generally less perfectly developed than in ordinary fishes. In the fossil specimens of ganoids, accordingly, little or nothing is usually preserved excepting the scales.

The red sandstones and shales have afforded few fos- sils except casts of trunks of trees and foot-prints of ani- mals. The tracks are very abundant in certain layers, and are in great variety. Some of them indicate animals of very large size. One of the largest was a quadruped whose hind feet made a four-toed track eighteen inches in length. It is believed to have been an amphibian of the order of labyrinthodonts-an order now entirely ex- tinct. The majority of the tracks are three-toed, and were apparently made by animals which at least ordina- rily moved as bipeds, supporting themselves exclusively on their posterior limbs. Three-toed tracks of a biped naturally suggests to the mind the idea of a bird, and the tracks are popularly known as bird-tracks. Some emi-

GENERAL HISTORY.

nent geologists have coincided with the popular opinion. It seems probable, however, that that opinion is errone- ous. While the tracks are acknowledged to resemble exactly those of birds, it is now well known that there was in the Mesozoic age another order of animals to which the tracks might be referred-animals, in fact, whose tracks would be undistinguishable from those of birds. The animals referred to are the dinosaurs-an order of reptiles remarkable for their approximation to birds in many parts of the skeleton, and particularly in the structure of the pelvis and hind limb. The dinosaurs were not clothed with feathers, and did not have the an- terior limbs developed as wings. But many of them were completely bipedal in their mode of progression, and their three-toed tracks would exactly resemble those of birds. So far as the appearance of the tracks goes, they might be referred with equal likelihood to birds or to dinosaurs. Two reasons, however, render the dinos- aurian character of the animals much the more probable. First, it is certain that dinosaurs were in existence at the time of the deposition of the sandstones, while it is very doubtful whether there were any birds. It is still in doubt whether the age of these sandstones is Triassic or Jurassic. Now dinosaurs are known to have existed throughout these two periods, while the earliest skeletons of birds have been found in the beds of the later part of the Jurassic. Secondly, the colossal size of some of these tracks is strongly against their avian character; for all the unquestionable birds of the Mesozoic age were compara- tively small animals, while among the dinosaurs were in- cluded the largest land animals that have ever lived. Of course, any determination of the affinities of the animals which made the tracks, must be regarded as merely pro- visional, in the absence of actual skeletons. But it is altogether probable that the three-toed tracks were those of dinosaurs.

No mammalian remains have been found in the sand- stones of the Connecticut Valley; but a portion of a skeleton found in the corresponding formation in North Carolina has shown that at that period small marsupials, allied to the modern opossums, were already in existence.

As has already been remarked, the age of the Connec- ticut Valley sandstone and the associated rocks is either Triassic or Jurassic. They are certainly newer than the Carboniferous, for they overlie unconformably a system of folded rocks in which the Carboniferous is in- cluded. It is equally certain that these rocks are older than the Cretaceous, of which well characterized de- posits are found in New Jersey. It is, however, at pres- ent impossible to fix the age more definitely. The char- acteristic fossils of the respective subdivisions of the Triassic and Jurassic periods, as recognized in other parts of the world, are chiefly remains of marine animals, the fossiliferous rocks being mostly marine. The Con- necticut Valley sandstones and associated rocks contain no marine fossils whatsoever-scarcely any fossils, in fact, except fresh water fishes, impressions of land plants, and tracks of land animals. Hence it has been im- possible to correlate these rocks exactly with any par-

ticular group of strata in other parts of the world. Lithologically the rocks much resemble the New Red Sandstone of England, and the Bunter Sandstein of Ger- many, which are of Triassic age. Lithological resemb- lance, however, in rocks of widely separated areas, is no reliable proof of contemporaneity.

III. The Trap Rocks.

Closely connected with the Connecticut Valley sand- stones are remarkable developments of igneous rock. The typical rock in the trap dikes and sheets is a dolerite or diabase, consisting chiefly of pyroxene and labradorite, but containing also more or less of magnetite and some other minerals. The presence of magnetite gives a remarkable magnetic property to much of the rock. If a compass be moved about upon a surface of the trap rock, it will often be found that at different points within an area of a square yard the needle will point in every possible direction. Even hand specimens of the rock often exhibit strikingly this magnetic property. Some of the trap rock has be- come hydrated by the penetration of water and aqueous vapor into the mass, more or less of the pyroxene being converted into chlorite. The hydrous traps are often amygdaloidal, the cavities being filled with datolite, prehnite, calcite, and other crystalline minerals. Fine specimens of datolite in the cavities of an amygdaloid were obtained from a cutting near Westfield, in the build- ing of the Berlin Branch Railroad. The trap rocks of the Connecticut Valley often show, more or less distinctly, the columnar structure, resulting from contraction in cooling, which is so characteristic of igneous rocks. Very perfect examples of such columns may be seen at Mount Holyoke, in Massachusetts, and at Rabbit Rock, near New Haven. No very good examples have been ob- served within the limits of Middlesex county. The trap has been used very extensively for macadamizing roads, and to some extent as a building stone. For the former purpose it is exceedingly well adapted.

The trap has been spoken of as an igneous rock, and there can be no doubt that it came up in a melted state from the interior of the earth. The sandstone in many places shows, along the line of contact with the trap, the most unmistakable effects of heat, being sometimes strongly indurated, sometimes rendered vesicular ard almost scoriaceous by the conversion into steam of the moisture present in the sandstone, sometimes impreg- nated with crystalline minerals. A remarkably fine ex- ample of this local metamorphism of the sandstone may be seen in Middlefield, at Rice's Cut on the Air Line Railroad, about a mile northeast of Reed's Gap.

The trap is sometimes seen to form unquestionable dikes cutting across the sandstone strata; but it more commonly occurs in sheets which coincide in dip and strike with the underlying and overlying sandstones. The latter mode of occurrence admits of two explanations. The trap may have been poured out on the surface as a lava overflow after the deposition of the underlying sand- stone, and the overlying sandstone may have been sub- sequently deposited upon the cooled and hardened sur-

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.

face of the trap. Or, after the deposition of both the underlying and the overlying sandstone, some strain in the crust of the globe may have split them apart, forming a crack parallel with the planes of stratification, into which flowed the molten rock. In briefer technical lan- guage, the trap in intercalated sheets may be either con- temporaneous or intrusive. A pretty good criterion to distinguish the two cases is afforded by the contact with the overlying sandstone, where that contact can be ob- served. For it is obvious that, in the case of contempor- aneous trap, only the underlying sandstone should show the characteristic effects of heat; while, in the case of in- trusive trap, the underlying and overlying sandstones should show those effects in about equal degree. Un fortunately, contacts between the trap and the overlying sandstone are seldom accessible, the overlying sandstone having been removed by erosion from the surface of the trap hills, and the lines of contact on lower ground being generally covered by Quaternary deposits and by vegeta- tion. The most probable conclusion from the somewhat scanty evidence thus far collected is that some of the trap sheets are contemporaneous, and some of them in trusive. The trap was probably erupted, not all at once, but at intervals through a period of time commencing before, and continuing after, the close of the period of the deposition of the sandstones.

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History of Middlesex county, Connecticut, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Part 4

Author: Whittemore, Henry, b. 1833; Beers, J.B. & Company, publishers Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : J. B. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 818

Author: Whittemore, Henry, b. 1833; Beers, J.B. & Company, publishers
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : J. B. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 818